This list basically just demonstrates why films are not worth spending time on, none of those films were works of art worthy of standing beside any great works in traditional mediums. Film is an inherently spiritually corrupt mode of expression.

There is thought provoking and expanding imagery in quite a few films. I don't disagree that the vast amount is execrable, but this is true of other pursuits as well, including metal. Blade Runner may suffer from a third rate narrative, but the vision is inspired art. Similarly, Se7en may be a puerile piece of trash to some, but it undoubtedly contains elements of darkness and beauty and is a reflection of the world as much as any other art.

Similar is not "the same", and I'm saying you're wrong where we differ. This is called "debate".

In that particular regard, I am saying the same thing. Can you please identify exactly where the disagreement is stemming from?

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A good man who commits one evil deed in his life is automatically evil?

A man who does not then recognize his evil deed as evil is yes, automatically evil. He would not then be a good man.

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Where do we see this?

In history and the world around us. Nothing of value emerges from those who take up the banner of Nazism because the prime motivation is flawed. Do you disagree that it is flawed? That it is negative and pernicious? Is that where the disagreement lies? Something of value could possibly emerge I guess, and if it did it would be accepted.

Subtle and mature certainly (more so than other recent releases), and it makes me optimistic for the future but a lot of A Fragile King is merely tolerable. The compositional technique that you mention in your post is employed in such a reductionist manner (to make it easier? I don't know) that it is detrimental to the quality in my listening. A lot of the riffs are the low end of reasonable. Structure varies little, and is usually content to circle around like a washing machine before ending the cycle in variation. Oftentimes, going through this album is a series of meh's.

Do we say that Environmentalism is bad because it's part of Hippie ideology, and they fuse it with their entire retard worldview? No, we extract whatever good may have come from the Hippie influence and move on.

I'm saying similar things. We do call hippies bad. Nazism and Nazis are similarly bad. No? Pragmatism would not simply be taking the best, but also a rejection of the worst. We see that Nazism leads to nothing, so take what is of value from it and then bury it with other failures. Am I saying something different from the quoted?

Nazism is not that. In fact, everything it touches turns to waste. Once people step into the mindset of viewing life by race-only, all becomes skewed to that obsession.

I stopped reading here. What the fuck is this? This anti-Nazism crap is total and utter bollocks, primarily because YOU'RE ONLY FOCUSING ON ONE FUCKING PART OF THEIR PLATFORM. Talk about hypocricy. "Oh, they're racits!!1!1, so we're going to ignore ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that they've ever said or supported".

I apologise for seeming slightly angered by the vacuity of your post, but the quality is so totally absent that I cannot help but feel a righteous fury.

What I have understood: there may be truths in Nazism, but when the primary viewpoint is race everything is viewed through that perspective. It colors perception to the point that reality is abandoned, (despite vociferous claims of actually representing reality), leading to actions without benefit, or actions that are directly harmful. The rule should be; ignore nothing, but reject mindsets that obscure the truth or that can never truly be practical (perhaps a definition of irrationality in a way?). Whatever answers Nazism may have, as personal politics it is worthless. Is this not supported by history (post WW2)? By just looking at fucking Stormfront and seeing a morass of idiocy and negativity that is accepted because it is palatable to the mindset? Hatred at the expense of the intellect and pragmatism.

There is some value in pure memorization. Understanding and realization cannot occur without absorbing knowledge first; something learned by rote may later contribute to deeper understanding (e.g. learning times tables, dates in history etc.). But if this is all that's going on at a high school level that's kind of shit, yeah. Anyway, if you're currently having exams, best of luck.

You're arguing that a retarded person, given enough years in excellent music classes, is highly likely, thanks to neural plasticity, to be the next Vivaldi? This is biologically credible?

I am not saying a retard can produce a work of genius. I find the other extreme just as silly. A person with actual mental defect would lack too much of the platform you mentioned. To become the next Vivaldi, merely excellent music classes would not suffice; but a cultivation of a similar creative spirit. There is an element of genius there as well, which could not be cultivated. Cargést expressed it well. As an aside, is it really that hard to believe some initially tin-eared dumbass could produce music of worth?

In any case, the example of music was chosen because it occured first, to illustrate the effect. The effect is fact. I don't deny that heredity plays a role, it may even play an important role, but to consider it an absolute is just flipping liberal dogma over and should be rejected. The specific point was a rejection of this statement: "the effectiveness of these extrinsic inputs would be limited by the neural platform itself." Since the platform is itself alterable, provably so, how do you resolve this? Please clarify.

How is it the opposite of polished? I meant it in the sense of being so tightened and "perfected" that it lost all of the original character (i.e. the "sensitivity" of it, as you put it). Vikernes specifically left the mistakes he made during recording in the music, the first time round, and it's those little imperfections which make the result seem more real/organic than this mechanised crap.

Since this "tightening" actually destroys the quality of the music, how can it be considered polish? To me the songs sound sloppier now because their communicative effectiveness is reduced by these efforts, this is not a work I can call polished without limiting the meaning to specific technique. But perhaps I have made a semantic error, at least we are in essential agreement. In the same vein, I am glad you used quotation marks for "perfected".

It's more than just corrected production, Varg is playing in a way that seems to be ignorant of the elements of the songs and their evocative effect. Hence sensitivity, referring specifically to his instrumentation and not the character of the song (which is altered as a consequence).

Examinations are valuable for basic differentiation. I don't understand the question entirely, the motivation behind it is not clear to me. Is your concern poor examinations that do not reflect anything?

Entrance exams would be a good test of knowledge during the process of joining an academic institution. Other than that, I don't see much of a point of them - teachers should be able to ascertain the intelligence of their pupils without such tests.

I disagree somewhat, they have value in ascertaining whether someone has acquired specific knowledge/skills (including skills in critical thought for instance, especially relating to a particular discipline). For example, it does not matter how intelligent a physician is if he lacks one small bit of information or understanding that could mean the difference between life and death. If your perspective is only for examinations in schools, teaching young children/adolescents, then this is a fair statement.

The human nervous system exhibits plasticity, so this is not entirely credible biologically at least. It is possible to "grow" faculty. One example; a person trained in a musical instrument will develop new connections that permit him to perform the range of tasks required. Can it be said that this does not extend to other, deeper matters?

For example, how can it be said that some people are genetically inferior, if we do not understand the link between the state of wisdom and the state of lack of wisdom? In this regard, it cannot be. It is a gigantic leap..

Considering intellectual intelligence and all the other positive attributes I mentioned before, what combination of these qualities are necessarily required, if any, in order for the possibility of ever attaining spiritual wisdom to be honestly realistic? No idea, but certainly a combination and not any single one (even freakishly enhanced)

Is a quality of actual wisdom itself also passed on in a person's heredity, except not through their genetic heredity but their spiritual heredity (I know many posters on this forum subscribe to the notion of reincarnation)? As elements of wisdom have provable hereditary links, a base level of potential is certainly hereditary. Beyond this, the link is tenuous. Even in strictly biological terms, expression of genetic factors is often a consequence of environment. What do you mean by spiritual heredity? An essential quality passed down directly from biological ancestors or the spiritual awareness present within one's culture/heritage?

I have not read it, but Dr. Fuhrman may not be a credible individual. The cover makes me immediately skeptical. There is a huge population of unscrupulous individuals selling alternative healthcare ideas or solutions with flimsy or outright fabricated research; as well as rejection of accepted science as being "biased" (which it is, against them, since it may or may not support what they are peddling.)

This quote from Dr. Fuhrman is not encouraging: "It's easy to understand why this study was so hard to get published and the stranglehold the drug companies and the medical profession has on the status quo in disease-care. It should not even be called health care!". This is the usual cry of people with agendas or products to sell. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/12/the_spontaneous_regression_of_breast_can.php <-- the source, plus another statement that brings his integrity into question. I'm no nutritionist, but I share professions with this person and am immediately concerned. Nevertheless, if you have found something of value in it I will not disregard it out of hand. Thank you for making me aware of it.

One of the benefits of ketosis is you don't feel tired at all! You feel alert as fuck. You sound like you have experienced it. A 3 week fast of nothing but water could still cause lasting harm. You do actively metabolize protein in prolonged starvation (several days) whether or not you have stores of fat. It is a part of the starvation response.

That is extremely unhealthy diesel. I would advise against repeating that. From my own experience, when ketosis kicks in you gain a certain clarity. That is the most desirable aspect of fasting for me; an induction of death, a triumph of will over biological prerogative. Do not harm yourself to do it though, that's just silly. Make sure you get micronutrients and at least some calories every few days.

great ideas. im already done with the first one. how often and for how long should one fast and deprive themselves though? i don't particularly want to develop any fucked up conditions or die of a heart attack.

I will take your question to be; how long should one fast to receive intellectual/spiritual benefit? An example that comes to mind is the Prophet Muhammad, whatever your views about what he fostered, the man was a thinker, at times an ascetic, and a great faster. In the spiritual traditions of the Sufis of India (also Islamic), there are accounts of people who would fast on alternate days, or for 3 months out of a year etc., obviously influenced by the example of Muhammad. The method of fasting is quite specific: Rise before sunrise, have some optional intake (water, a very, very light meal), then till sunset deprive yourself of all food, drink, sexual congress, drugs (including tobacco) and poor behaviour (hatred, spite, jealousy, envy, backbiting, whatever you consider to be unworthy in this vein). Meditate often. At sunset break the fast with another light meal/water. From experiencing it, it is effective, but you may tailor it to your requirements and preferences. It could be a useful example. Performing it with ritualistic deliberateness, with stated and felt intent, is also powerful and symbolic; adding to the benefit in my humble opinion.

From the perspective of your health, do not completely deprive yourself of calories for longer than 3-4 days. During the first few days of starvation, the body uses up its stores of glucose. After the 2nd/3rd day, breakdown of fatty tissue begins. If starvation continues however, over the course of just over a week the body begins to also use up its own protein. You certainly do not want your body metabolizing desirable protein (muscle) to generate energy. Let it subsist on fatty acids/ketone bodies. Fatty acids are breakdown products of stored fat which are metabolized for energy by almost all tissues of the body. However, the brain can only use either pure glucose or ketone bodies as a source of energy, its cells do not have the chemical mechanisms to use fatty acids. Ketone bodies are a byproduct of metabolism of fatty acids in the liver, they are three chemical compounds that can be thought of as slightly altered building blocks of fat. At about day 4 of starvation, ketone bodies account for ~70% of the energy that the brain receives. As I mentioned earlier, in my experience this produces a clarity of thought that is worth seeking.

The lines directed at diesel also apply. Cultivate thirst, but do not dehydrate yourself unnecessarily; get a good amount of water in you over the course of the day. Ketosis makes the blood acidic (reduces pH), and dehydration can exacerbate this effect. It is unlikely to be harmful unless you overdo it, but it does require the regulatory system in your kidneys that handles blood pH to work quite a bit.

Some traditions relating to fasting by the Prophet Muhammad:

-Narrated Muslim al-Qurashi: "I asked or someone asked the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) about perpetual fasting. He replied: You have a duty to your family. Fast during Ramadan and the following month, and every Wednesday and Thursday. You will then have observed a perpetual fast. (Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 13, Number 2426)"

-Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Amr bin Al-'As: "Once Allah's Apostle came to me," and then he narrated the whole narration, i.e. your guest has a right on you, and your wife has a right on you. I then asked about the fasting of David. The Prophet replied, "Half of the year," (i.e. he used to fast on every alternate day). (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 31, Number 195)"